April arrives and lots to do in the vegetable patch

Saturday dawns with light showers but soon brightens up into a very warm afternoon.

In the morning I headed back to the workshop to do some more on the cold frame but by midday it was so warm outside I headed back to the vegetable patch.

It was looking a little dry under the cloche so I removed the cover and gave everything a drink. Whilst having a coffee break I checked out the weather on the internet and it seems we have a frost free spell ahead so decided to roll up the cloche cover and put away for now.

The tubs with the lettuce and cabbage seedlings which had been under the cloche looked just about big enough to be pricked out.

I filled some small pots with John Innes No. 1 compost and pricked out eight of each. The germination rate had been so good it was hard to stop myself from pricking them all out but lack of space for the cabbages and eight lettuces will be plenty for my use. So I forced myself to put the rest into the compost bin and gave it a bit of a stir up at the same time.

The rest of the afternoon was spent washing the pots used last year ready for re-use.

Sunday and another warm day and I decided to start laying the kerbs to border the vegetable patch to replace the timber edging used when I made the patch a few years back. Also this will add a little more space to compensate for the ground lost when I finally get around to finish making the greenhouse.

Sometime back whilst walking around the site with Laddie I saw a couple of concrete blocks with square holes in them and thought they could be used for plants.

These were placed in between the kerbs and filled with compost and I sowed a few French Marigold seeds in one block and some Nasturtium in the other. The thinking being having some flowers around will attract the bees to pollinate the vegetable crops. I just need to bring the sack barrow home from work one day this week to drag another five kerbs upto the veg patch from the bottom of the site where the guy dropped them off for me by mistake.